"It was dark..."
"I could count your ribs," she says pleasantly, "and I went to law school, not medical school."
I did not, in fact, think she could see that much. I revise my position silently and say nothing because she will take it as a win.
On television they've moved on to a segment about a proposed development in Koreatown, which happens to be one of mine, and I watch the aerial footage of the site with the particular satisfaction I reserve for things that are entirely mine — built from nothing, from the first investment I made at twenty-one with money I borrowed from one of the seediest loan sharks in Los Angeles, and paid back before anyone knew I'd borrowed it. Sullivan & Associates. Seven years of it. Every corner of it earned.
The fountain thing notwithstanding.
"Call Jackson, they’re bringing someone in from that firm." Rosalie says.
I look at her. "For what?"
"Image management. The board wants the Sullivan name cleaned up before the Meridian deal closes in six weeks."
"I don't need a—"
"It's already done." She meets my eyes. "You can be furious or you can be strategic, but you don't get to be both at once, so pick."
I am, in fact, furious. I am also aware that she's right, which is the more irritating part.
The Meridian deal is the biggest acquisition Sullivan & Associates has ever attempted. Three point eight billion dollars. Two years of groundwork, eighteen months of negotiations, and a public-private partnership with the City of Los Angeles that took every relationship I've spent seven years building to even get to the table.
The project itself is a full urban redevelopment of a thirty-acre site in East Los Angeles that the city has been trying to revitalize for two decades. Mixed use — residential towers with an affordable housing component, commercial space, a hotel, retail corridors, all anchored to the new Metro line that breaks ground next spring. The kind of development that changes a neighborhood for a generation. The kind that puts a name on a building that outlasts the man who built it.
The city needs a developer with the capital and the credibility to execute at that scale. I need the city's cooperation on zoning, permitting, and the tax incentive package that makes the numbers work. We need each other, which is the best and most fragile kind of partnership there is.
What it is not, is resilient to bad press.
Councilwoman Patricia Reyes has been my champion on the city side for eighteen months. She went to bat for Sullivan & Associates in closed sessions, pushed the partnership through committee over significant opposition, and is currently running for reelection in a district where her opponents are already looking for ammunition. One phone call from her office last week made it very clear that my name trending for the wrong reasons was making her political life considerably more difficult.
If she pulls her support, the deal dies. It's that simple.
If the board gets skittish enough to follow, I spend the next year rebuilding what took two to construct, and Meridian gets handed to the next developer willing to navigate the city's bureaucracy with more patience than I have.
Three point eight billion dollars.
Two years of my life.
A fountain and some bad press.
"Fine," I say.
Rosalie's expression doesn't change, but something in it relaxes slightly. She's been worried. She hides it well, but I know her better, and the worry on her face has a specific heaviness.
"Who's the firm?" I ask.
She picks up her phone, opens something, and hands it over to me without a word.
The screen shows a company's page. Monroe Communications. Clean design, nothing really flashy about it. Houston based, which I note. The client list reads like a who's who of people who needed problems to disappear quietly and needed someone good enough to make that happen without leaving fingerprints. Political campaigns. Fortune 500 restructurings. A couple of names I recognize from situationsthat were significantly worse before they weren't, and then suddenly weren't mentioned again.
I hand the phone back.
"Set a meeting," she says. "We'll go to the board together. Get a full picture of what they think is actually at stake here."
"We know what's at stake. The Meridian deal—"
"Then act like it." She takes the phone and sets it face down on the cushion beside her, which means the conversation is shifting from attorney to sister, and I should pay attention accordingly. "Michael. This bad boy image — the parties, the women, all of it — I know what it is. I've always known what it is. But there are limits to what charm and deflection can absorb, and you are right up against yours." She holds my eyes. "You have worked too hard and come too far to hand them a reason to walk away from the biggest deal of your career. So, whatever this firm needs from you, you give it to them. No questions asked."
